This qualitative study examines hiring difficulties in local television (TV) news in small and medium TV markets (DMA #30+). The results of in-depth interviews showed that most interviewed news directors experienced talent shortages in their markets and had fewer and less prepared applicants for reporter and producer positions than several years ago. This has resulted in a growing number of news directors hiring younger and non-traditional applicants without a journalism degree. The paper discusses the ways news directors adapt to the hiring challenges and provides recommendations about how to address these issues. It also examines the findings through the lens of supply and demand economic theory and the organizational prestige framework.
Media system dependency theory posits that during times of crisis, individuals are more dependent on mass media for information, leading to attitudinal and behavioral change. The outset of the COVID-19 pandemic in the spring of 2020 provided a unique opportunity to study the impact of a global crisis within a new media context dominated by social and digital media. Using a cross-sectional survey administered in the United States at the outset of the COVID-19 pandemic, the present study found support for media dependency's impact on knowledge and engagement in protective behaviors. Television news was the strongest positive predictor, while radio dependency was found to have a negative impact, and social media dependency had none.
Push notifications have become a crucial touchpoint between news organizations and mobile audiences, yet little is known about how organizations strategically frame these brief messages. Drawing on framing theory, this study examines 3,459 push notifications from 11 major news organizations using data from Project Push, overcoming previous data collection limitations. Through quantitative content analysis, we investigate how organizations differ in their framing approaches across topic selection, urgency, news type, locality, calls to action, clickbait language, and message length. Results reveal significant organizational variation: some outlets prioritize traditional news values with longer, urgent, informative notifications, while others emphasize engagement through shorter, clickbait-heavy messages. Topic-based patterns emerge, with inherently urgent topics receiving straightforward framing while softer news relies on curiosity-provoking language. These findings extend framing theory to the constrained mobile environment and demonstrate how organizational priorities and brand identities manifest in push notification strategies, with implications for audience engagement and journalistic credibility.
This study examines how the opposition was portrayed in Republic TV's prime-time debates during India's 2019 parliamentary elections. While prior research has documented the channel's ideological alignment with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), this study analyzes the substance of partisan bias through portrayals of the opposition during this pivotal electoral moment. Drawing on thematic analysis of seven debates selected via constructedweek sampling, the study identifies seven dominant themes: Challenges to National Allegiance, Communal Politics and Religious Alignment, Scrutiny of Democratic Integrity, Election Campaign Criticism, Ethical Challenges and Behavior, Opposition Alliance Instability, and Financial Misconduct. Each theme contains subthemes that further delineate these portrayals. A frequency analysis maps their distribution across speakers, revealing systematic alignment between the anchor and ruling-party-affiliated panelists. The findings highlight Republic TV's role in constructing a delegitimizing discourse and raise concerns about partisan media ecosystems and editorial coordination in India's election coverage.
Based on the theoretical framework of imbalanced international news flow, we conducted a quantitative content analysis on 1,979 articles ( N = 1,979) and a computational content analysis on 42,938 headlines ( N 0 = 42,938) to examine international news diversity in the US between 2018 and 2022. Our results demonstrated that international news covered by US newspapers was primarily US- and UK-centric, a trend that has been consistent for over four decades. Global North countries received significantly more coverage, while coverage of Global South countries was scarcer and more negative. Hard news dominated international news coverage. We also identified 23 news themes in our N 0 , including those about China/Russia, Brexit/EU, North Korea, and COVID-19; seven of them exhibited significant temporal changes linked to the COVID-19 pandemic and presidential transitions. Theoretical implications for global agenda-setting, practical recommendations for newsrooms and pedagogy, and methodological contributions were further discussed.
This study presents a content analysis of victim coverage by CNN, Aljazeera, and CGTN during the first 100 days of the Israel-Gaza war. The analysis reveals significant differences in framing: CNN tended to favor the Israeli perspective, while both Aljazeera and CGTN showed greater sympathy toward the Palestinian side. Although CNN did report on Palestinian victims empathetically, it expressed reservations that exhibited professional detachment and editorial caution. Overall, our findings suggest that while political and cultural proximities play a key role in shaping victim narratives, conflict-specific context and a broadcaster's strategic national interests also significantly influence media portrayals.
The current research examines two similarly situated journalism organizations, The San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Gate , to compare how they are utilizing the social network Reddit. Through the lens of post-publication gatekeeping theory, findings demonstrate that the Chronicle 's approach is more effective in terms of generating higher karma scores and more comments despite posting less frequently. One of the biggest differences was that SFGate tended to post more soft news, which was less well-received. Other variables were examined to understand how the audience responded to the content regardless of which publication posted it. By highlighting the relationship between content type, audience engagement, and platform features, this study offers key takeaways for journalism organizations seeking to optimize their Reddit strategies. Practical and theoretical implications are discussed.
By utilizing Hallin and Mancini’s four media systems criteria as a baseline interpretive lens, this study expands understandings of how Russian global media challenge existing international institutions. It illustrates how Russia Today (RT) frames Russia's media system vis-à-vis the West to online audiences. It examines 5 years of media-related posts (prior to Meta's ban) on RT's Arabic, English, French, and Spanish Facebook pages to reveal how audience engagement and post frequency related to media circulation, political parallelism, journalistic professionalism, and state intervention frames varied across languages and world regions. The study concludes with implications of RT's Western versus global south-targeting approaches and how they relate to the Kremlin's stated goal of creating a multipolar world.
This article examines how television news can be redesigned to engage the "Visual Generation" aged 18-25, who mostly encounter news in mobile feeds rather than scheduled broadcasts. It draws on a university-based "live lab" project in which journalism students produced A/B versions of environmental TV stories that were then discussed in eight focus groups with 64 young viewers. We ask which audiovisual formats and storytelling techniques they find most engaging, how they perceive constructive or solutions-oriented elements, and which pedagogical arrangements best prepare students to design such formats. Findings show that young viewers favor fact-based over sensational tone, visual explanations and device-native pacing, clear contextual background, and protagonists and "solutions" that involve credible actors, concrete actions, and realistic options. The study specifies these engagement cues in observable terms and demonstrates journalism education as a structured testing ground for evidence-based format innovation in collaboration with broadcasters that can inform newsroom practice.
Electronic news education stands at an inflection point as artificial intelligence, streaming platforms, and mobile-first consumption reshape newsroom practice and classroom pedagogy. This article situates current disruption within a longer history of broadcast journalism education, from early radio laboratories and the Missouri Method to teaching hospital models grounded in experiential learning. Drawing on a systematic review of 88 electronic news education studies published between 2015 and 2025 across ten leading journals, we find a shift from technically centered training toward mission-driven, experiential pedagogy. Critical thinking remains central, while data skills appear less prominent. Since 2020, scholarship has increasingly emphasized social issues and ethics, reflecting journalism education's civic response to misinformation and polarization. We argue that the task for educators is not merely adapting to new tools, but stewarding journalism's enduring mission of truth seeking while redesigning pedagogy for an evolving media landscape.
In this interview, Al Tompkins reflects on the future of broadcast journalism education within the rapid technological change and the rise of the artificial intelligence era. He suggests educators to move beyond platform-specific training and focus instead on enduring skills such as critical thinking, ethical reporting, storytelling craft, and asking meaningful "so what" questions. Tompkins discusses AI as both a disinformation challenge and a powerful reporting tool. He also highlights the importance of honest feedback, active listening, and mentorship in preparing students to do broadcast journalism that remains relevant, responsible, and impactful in a shifting media landscape.
Many journalism programs embrace the teaching hospital model because of its practical approach, employing working journalists as journalism educators. However, critics contend a more conceptual model of journalism education is needed. This essay explores the literature on journalism education models and seeks to integrate the teaching hospital and entrepreneurial journalism approaches with the revised Bloom's Taxonomy and Fink's Taxonomy of Significant Learning. Combined, these models provide a solid theoretical foundation for practical, applied journalism education. This essay applies these four models to journalism education, yielding a matrix of dimensions that can guide the creation or modification of curricula as well as individual courses. The synergy from integrating the practical and theoretical approaches yields a more comprehensive template for implementing journalism education.
This study aims to evaluate the appropriateness of main news programs broadcast on television channels for children's development. Children's development processes can be significantly affected by the content they are exposed to through the media. Violence, fear, and tragic events, which are frequently encountered especially in main news bulletins, may cause negative emotional responses in children. In this context, the study evaluates how suitable television news programs are for children by examining elements such as language use, visual elements, and presentation style. In the research process, the main news bulletins were systematically watched within a defined timeframe and evaluated using content analysis. Content analysis was conducted within the framework of criteria such as whether the language used in the news is simple and understandable, and whether the visuals are suitable for children's sensitivities. The findings reveal that most of the main news programs on television channels are not suitable for children, and that these programs often contain content that may negatively affect children's emotional development.
As fake news and disinformation continue to proliferate in digital journalism, the development of artificial intelligence (AI) analytics to identify synthetic content inconsistencies is increasingly important. This study explores trained AI analytics’ struggle to detect semantic gaps within AI-generated media. Findings reinforce human semantic capabilities and a direction for detection tools. AI analytics designed for semantic detection-related tasks are evaluated through the application of the Theory of Content Consistency, with insights for combatting social media news truth erosion.
Social media is an integral part of the journalism ecosystem for both reporting and distributing news content. One space in the social media landscape that is receiving new significant growth in the journalism sphere while having differences in its social media logic is Reddit. An organization that has dedicated resources to the usage of the platform, the Washington Post , is the focus of the current exploratory study to better understand how news brands are utilizing Reddit. This quantitative content analysis uses social media logic to examine the type of content that the Post shared and also considers the users’ responses to that content. Findings show that, despite a supposed emphasis on community building for news brands, the Post more heavily focused on distributing its own content. Additional findings include the importance of posting harder news on the platform instead of softer news for both Reddit score and comments and more.
Exposing private issues of the poor, vulnerable, and gullible, and creating “viral” stories on YouTube news platforms is a common practice in developing countries, including Nepal. Mimicking TV journalists, YouTube reporters with cameras and boom mics dig into the private lives of underprivileged people and upload news-like videos with colorful narratives and interpretations. This paper presents two Nepalese cases that went viral, mainly across YouTube news channels. The qualitative content analysis of 12 most-viewed videos, chosen from 38 viral videos on eight YouTube news platforms, shows how viral culture helps spread unverified content. The study found that these stories used unverified information, deceptive storytelling, and video editing techniques to attract viewers, often ignoring journalistic ethical standards. This paper adds to the discussion on how alternative news platforms manipulate vulnerable people’s emotions to draw their audience.
The present study aimed to understand the emotional impact of homicide news on the audience as a function of episodically versus thematically framed headlines, specifically in the context of news across contemporary platforms, such as social media and smartphone short news notifications. The study utilizes framing and media theories, emotional appraisal theories, and Affect Infusion Model from psychology to test the emotional response to news headlines as a function of the framing type. A sample of 119 participants gave self-reported ratings of emotional intensity of five emotions for ten headlines presented in randomized order. Headlines were based on five different types of homicide, and one episodic and one thematic headline was presented for each type. The findings indicated that episodically framed headlines elicited significantly more intense emotions than their thematic counterparts.
This study investigates the patterns of electronic news consumption among Generation Z students in Nigerian universities. A descriptive cross-sectional survey design was adopted. Data were collected from 261 undergraduates across five purposively selected Nigerian universities using a structured questionnaire. Descriptive statistics were employed for summarizing responses, while Spearman correlation and an independent samples t -test were used to test the hypotheses. Findings reveal a strong preference for electronic news over print, with web-based platforms, blogs, and social media being the most used sources. However, challenges such as high data costs, poor connectivity, and exposure to misinformation significantly impacted usage. Statistical analysis showed a significant relationship between students’ age, level of study, and electronic news patronage, and a significant gender difference in readership frequency, favoring male students. The study concludes that while Generation Z students are frequent users of digital news, their engagement is shaped by economic and demographic realities.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is changing journalism. New AI tools are not only changing how journalism is done, but how journalism is perceived. AI image generators will serve as meaning makers in the public understanding of who a journalist is and what a journalist looks like. Using the lens of metajournalistic discourse theory, the current study employs a content analysis of the images generated by different kinds of journalists by different AI image generators. Findings suggest AI image generators tap into sexist and racist tropes in their visualizations of different kinds of journalists. Implications of these findings and ideas for future research are discussed.
Once the significance of artificial intelligence (AI) in journalism is acknowledged, the future of the profession largely depends on how its key actors organize to address its effects. Based on 21 semi-structured interviews with executives, technicians, and journalists from eight leading UK media outlets, this article examines organizational changes (such as interdisciplinary work groups and training programs), differing reactions among professional profiles, internally developed AI projects, and the use of generative AI tools. The findings reveal uneven levels of development across these areas, influenced mainly by prior experience and the relationship with AI technology. Professionals with more technical or data-oriented roles tend to adopt AI more readily, while others express caution or skepticism. At the organizational level, long-term strategies and early investment emerge as key factors differentiating advanced implementations from more exploratory approaches. The research also reflects that half of the media outlets analyzed are implementing their own AI developments, and that most professionals are using tools based on this technology in some way. Understanding and critically analyzing these dynamics is essential to ensure that the profound industrial transformation underway benefits both the sustainability and integrity of the sector.
